


Scratching Calculations in the Dirt

by Giddygeek



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Animal Transformation, Import, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-29
Updated: 2006-05-29
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/pseuds/Giddygeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon took one look at Rodney, and pulled three knives out of nowhere.</p><p>"No, no," John said. "You don't get it. That's McKay."</p><p>"Looks like a monster to me," Ronon mumbled around the knife between his teeth. </p><p>"Well, yeah," John said, and Rodney roared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scratching Calculations in the Dirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/gifts).



> For Astolat, because she asked.
> 
> ...in 2006.

In the rainforests of P4X-707, Rodney was scanning a long-abandoned Ancient outpost and John was eyeing Rodney's ass whien Rodney tripped over a tree root. He cut his palm on a rock. "Oh great," he said, cradling his hand close to his chest as John headed over to check it out. " _That's_ going to need stitches--"

And then he turned into a dinosaur.

John froze. Rodney looked down at himself, as much as he could considering his short, spindly neck, and then he looked down at John.

"I guess it had to happen eventually," John said, after a long, silent moment, and Rodney roared.

*

Ronon took one look at Rodney, and pulled three knives out of nowhere.

"No, no," John said. "You don't get it. That's _McKay_."

"Looks like a monster to me," Ronon mumbled around the knife between his teeth.

"Well, _yeah_ ," John said, and Rodney roared. John turned to look at him. "Be quiet, Rodney, unless you want to wind up with a knife in your eye."

Rodney roared again, long and loud.

Ronon put his knives away. John raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged. "I'm convinced."

Teyla approached Rodney like he was a wild animal, hands out, movements slow. "How could such a thing happen?" She touched Rodney's leg carefully. "I have never known such a people for transformation," she said, looking at John. "Is this much change common on your planet?"

"Oh yeah," John said. "Have Beckett tell you about plastic surgery sometime."

Rodney roared.

"Actually, it might be a good idea to get Beckett," John said. "And Zelenka. You guys go ahead and brief Elizabeth, get her to start setting up a team. I'll walk Rodney to the gate."

Ronon nodded. Teyla hesitated. "Are you certain, Colonel Sheppard? Perhaps we should all go? The path to the stargate is clear, Dr. McKay would not need to be led there."

"He's not going to eat me," John said, waving her off. "Besides, the guy just got turned into a dinosaur, I think he could probably use some company."

Teyla nodded, clearly still uncertain. She touched Rodney's leg again, looking up at him, then shook her head and turned to follow Ronon to the gate.

John watched them go, then turned back to Rodney. "You're not going to fit through the gate." John crossed his arms over his chest and eyed Rodney. "I don't think we could even get your head through. We'll definitely have to bring Carson and Zelenka to you. They'll figure it out here."

Rodney roared, then took an astonishingly deep breath and made a sad noise like a bird chirping. A bird the size of a train, anyway.

John raised his eyebrows. "You might be the smartest guy in this galaxy, Rodney, but that won't make it any easier for you to operate a scanner with claws."

Rodney chirped again.

"Look around you. Rainforest. You have herbivore teeth. You're not going to starve."

Rodney took a mouthful of leaves off a tree--stripping it almost bare--and chewed. Seconds later, John was ducking to avoid a flying pile of chewed-up, spit-out green chunks.

"You're *impossible*," he said, and Rodney reared back on his hind legs and spread his front legs, a gesture so very Rodney that John had to grin. "Yeah. Literally."

Rodney nodded, then dropped down to all four legs again and followed John to the stargate, chirping all the way.

*

John went back to Atlantis long enough to check in with Elizabeth and help outfit Carson and Zelenka's team. When he came through with them, Rodney was lying down in the clearing. His forelegs were stretched out straight in front of him and his head, the size and roughly the shape of a school bus, was resting on them. He looked pretty much like an enormous, scaley, miserable Dachshund.

He didn't lift his head, just opened his eyes--incongruously bright blue--and made a rumbling noise like a sigh.

"Don't even," John said, approaching him. "I see those bushes with the bite marks."

Rodney rolled his eyes, then rumbled again and closed them. John looked over his shoulder at the people crowding each other awkwardly on the ramp, and sighed too.

"Are we going to fix him or stand around gawking all day?" he asked sharply, and people started moving, finally.

Parrish smiled at him as he walked down the ramp. "Have you considered that you're spending entirely too much time with Dr. McKay, Colonel?" he asked. "You're starting to sound a little--"

"Like I want our head of science back to human ASAP?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.

Parrish laughed. "Right." He scratched Rodney's cheek curiously. "Fascinating," he said, and Rodney opened his eye, looked at John, and tipped his head a little.

"Unless you do actually want to starve, you shouldn't crush the botanist," John said.

Rodney considered it for a moment, then straightened his head, eyeing John balefully.

"I'm sure you'll have another chance later," John said, and patted his nose.

*

John wasn't particularly happy about having to leave Rodney on P4X-707, but couldn't stay. There was too much going on in the city, and he hadn't planned to be away overnight.

"I'll be back in the morning," he said. "Don't eat anyone, okay?"

Rodney roared and, through pathetic dinosaur melodrama, managed to convince John that he did actually need a small mountain of unwrapped Powerbars brought through the gate for him in the morning, although with Parrish's help, he had managed to find a pretty varied selection of edible vegetation.

"Fine, but don't expect room service every day," John said, and reluctantly went home.

*

Rodney got room service every day. In the morning, while he was happily munching his way through the stack of Powerbars, making pleased rumbly noises, John tended to stay on the other side of the clearing with the crew. Rodney was not a neat eater, even when he was human.

When he was done, he followed John and they tried to help the scientists and doctors figure out how they were going to get him back to normal. On the tenth morning, Zelenka straightened and pushed his glasses higher on his nose.

"Colonel," he said. "Perhaps you could be of more use to us if you were to take Rodney for a walk. You can see, it is a bit of a distraction to have him attempting to scratch calculations in the dirt with his claws. Also he has broken three laptops and a nurse."

Rodney roared.

"The laptops will _not_ be fine," Zelenka said. "Go, Rodney, or we will make deliberate errors and leave you here a very long time."

Rodney laid down and put his head on his legs, a great, sulking heap of sandy-colored limbs and pathetic noises.

"I think he means it, Rodney," John said, and walked to the side of Rodney's head that was turned away from the team. He stroked Rodney's broad, flat cheek. His skin was pebbly, coarse, and very warm. "C'mon," he said. "We'll go down to the river, and I'll tell you all about what Cadman said in the mess last week. I think Carson is still blushing."

Rodney rumbled, but the lure of gossip was too strong, and he clambered to his feet and led John down the path to the river.

*

It was very peaceful by the river. Rodney put his forelegs in the water but refused to go in any further. John skipped a few stones and gave him all the gossip from home, grinning when Rodney rumbled or went off on a chirping rant in response. The form was different but the personality was pure McKay, which was a relief. Every morning, while he was unwrapping 15 Powerbars, John tried not to worry that he'd step through the stargate and find Rodney had truly changed.

After a while, he ran out of things to say, and went to sit on one of the rocks that lined the beach. He leaned against Rodney's leg and watched the water.

"You know, you could be having a worse vacation," he said. Rodney stopped dragging shiny rocks off the riverbed to flick a claw and douse him with water while he spluttered and cursed and was glad to see Rodney's sides heave with what was, apparently, the dinosaur version of laughter.

*

In the afternoon, John walked Rodney back to the clearing by the stargate and scratched his cheek one last time. "Okay," he said, stepping back. "You gonna make it another day?"

Rodney glared at him, and John grinned. "Then I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good night--and don't eat those red plants again, they make your breath reek."

Rodney chirped in a way that suggested he thought John could go fuck himself with the red plants, and John laughed and turned away, jogging a little so he could just get it over with. It was more difficult every day to leave Rodney behind, but Carson and Zelenka's team still had no idea how to turn him human again and there was no way to bring him home. John dialed Atlantis' address and walked through the gate, and very carefully didn't look back.

*

On the fifteenth day, Rodney only nibbled at his Powerbars. John watched him for a few minutes, concerned, before heading across the clearing.

"Aye," Carson said, nodding. "His spirits seem low. He is running out of faith in us, I believe." He looked down at the charts on his laptop monitor, and sighed. "I can't say that I blame him."

"No progress?" John tried to read Carson's notes, but Carson shook his head, no. John crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the laptop for a while, unseeing, and after a moment Carson tactfully left him alone.

*

"Come on," he said to Rodney, who had put his head down and half-closed his eyes although most of his Powerbars were still baking in the sun. "Come on, Rodney, we're going for a walk. Move it!"

Rodney blinked at him, startled. Sad. John told himself he was reading too much into it, Rodney couldn't really make his big dinosaur face show that much misery, and he poked Rodney's cheek. "Seriously," he said. "You've killed all your trees here. Let's go find something else to eat."

Rodney rumbled at him but climbed to his feet and shook himself like a dog. John led him out of the clearing, away from the paths he'd already made--eaten his way down, really--and led him into the rainforest.

It was dim and cool under the trees, and he carefully chose a route that would get Rodney through the overgrown places. He stopped by plants that Parrish had pointed out to him, but Rodney wasn't interested in many of them. He'd tear up a bush here and there then let most of them fall out of his mouth half-eaten, making huge, wet piles of leaves.

"You've got to knock this off," John said, crossing his arms over his chest as Rodney warily sniffed at a flowering tree that smelled strongly of mint. "You can't just decide you're going to be a dinosaur forever and start starv--"

Another dinosaur roared. John and Rodney both jerked, surprised. It was about twenty feet away, a creature that looked like Rodney but larger, with darker coloring. It roared again and moved through the trees, turning its head like a bird, quick little jerks. Threatening. Aggressive. _Fast_.

John's hands went to his P-90 and he backed up, bumped into Rodney's foreleg. "Rodney, go," he said and Rodney turned a little, but then stopped. He made a hissing sound, a frightening mix of angry cat and swarm of bees that had John's skin crawling. Then he gently knocked John out of the way and moved toward the other dinosaur, head thrust forward, tail lashing nervously.

"Rodney," John said and raised the P-90, although he knew it would be next to useless. A bullet wouldn't even feel like a thorn in the side of something as huge and thick-skinned as a dinosaur.

The other dinosaur roared again, shaking its head. It crouched low and then sprang forward, and slammed into Rodney with a dull thud that rattled John's bones.

Rodney fell back, then shook himself and hissed again. He lashed out with his clawed front feet and caught the other dinosaur in the sides, digging in. It shrieked--startled, hurt, and John had a moment to wonder if maybe it had been human too, was some other person who'd had the misfortune to stumble onto this planet, but then it rakes its claws against Rodney's belly and he didn't care anymore. He wanted it dead.

Rodney screamed, then slammed his head against the other dinosaur's, dragging his claws up its sides while it writhed and tried to wriggle free. Rodney released it and it took a few stumbling steps backwards, then roared one more time, and bolted. Rodney took one step after it, two--

And fell to his knees.

John rushed forward as Rodney hunched over, arms wrapped around himself. "Rodney?"

Rodney looked up. He was shivering. There were three long cuts across his side, abdomen and chest, and his arms were red with blood. "Sheppard?" he said, and then moaned and curled up tighter.

John keyed his radio and dropped to his knees. "Beckett, Rodney's been hurt," he said. "Come. Now."

"On my way," Carson said immediately. "What--"

"He was attacked by another dinosaur, then turned human again. It got him in the stomach. It's bad," he said grimly, looking at the long red lines. "Hurry."

He braced an arm around Rodney's shoulders, trying to keep him from moving, and put his other hand on Rodney's pale face, feeling his skin soft against his palm. "C'mon buddy, you'll be all right," he said, and Rodney moaned, then gasped weirdly, almost like a chuckle but terribly not.

"This _galaxy_ ," he said, and passed out, slumping against John's hands. His arms fell limply, one across John's thighs, smearing his pants with Rodney's blood.

John closed his eyes and held on. "Don't you dare," he said. "Don't you dare--" and Carson was there, pushing him aside, giving orders to his team as he got to work.

*

"--so it's a good thing that no one else got so much as a papercut," Carson said. "Or we might very well have had a herd of our people, roaming that planet as dinosaurs."

Rodney snorted, then flattened a hand on his stomach. "Don't worry," he said after a moment. They were all watching him, anxiously. "No, I mean about the dinosaurs. I would've made someone bleed again soon enough. We'd have figured out how to fix it."

Elizabeth frowned at him. "Do we have any idea why the Ancients would've designed such a thing?"

"Who cares about why, I just want to know the how." Rodney took a big bite of his sandwich. Through a full mouth, he said, "Though if you _need_ a why, I offer 'because they were insane.' "

"I second that," John said, raising his hand.

"And you're genetically the closest thing to them," Rodney said. "What should that tell us about you?"

"That you shouldn't mess with me or I'll figure out how to turn you into a goldfish?" John said, smiling pleasantly at him.

"Gold fish?" Ronon asked, and bared his teeth at Rodney. "Sound good to eat."

Rodney sat up straighter, indignant, and Elizabeth laughed and pushed back her chair.

"I think that means this meeting should be adjourned," she said, smiling at them all. "Rodney, it's very good to see you on your own two feet again."

"I know, thank you," Rodney said, and took a huge bite of his sandwich, sighing happily. A little piece of lettuce fell onto his shirt, because he could be a guy or a dinosaur, and some things would never change.

John flicked the lettuce away as everyone else left the room. Rodney shifted when John left his hand on his chest for a moment, then John touched his cheek, thumb moving gently over his cheekbone. Rodney swallowed, and stared at him with wide, blue eyes.

"It was kind of cool how you could've taken over Tokyo," John said. "But it's good to have you back."

"Oh, well," Rodney said, waving a hand. "I could still take over Tokyo." He was breathless but smug, and he smiled when John laughed, leaned forward, and kissed him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Scratching Calculations in the Dirt [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3353684) by [librarychick_94](https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarychick_94/pseuds/librarychick_94)




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